Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

What’s Up!?

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

What’s up and where have we been?  I’m going to answer it for you all right now.  Yes, we’re still alive.  Yes, we remember your phone number (or have it somewhere).  No, we haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth.  No we’re not mad at you.  Things have been busy.  Crazy busy.  I have been neglecting everyone.  I am very, very sorry.

I have been working tirelessly at launching a new business.  With the two kids always within earshot it has become very hard to plan weddings for clients who expect my full attention (and deserve it).  So until piss and vinegar, I mean Noah and Kate, are both out of the house for a chunk of time every day I’m trying to use my talents for other things.  I just opened “Oh My Bride” (www.ohmybride.com).  It is an opportunity for me to still make money and play in the wedding business without having to be on call 24/7 or at the beck and call of a bridezilla with a cell phone.  Sure, I still have “office hours” and plan to interact when I need to but at least the majority of my dealings will now be online and through email to keep me from having to screen calls and dance around nap schedules.  I am still doing weddings, at least until this new venture gains momentum, and I’m looking forward to a packed dance card this winter with events.

As I mentioned before, my sister and her children were in town for 10 days and we took every opportunity to enjoy their company.  We also did my niece, Natalie’s, senior photos while they were here.  With so many interests though it turned into a bit of a marathon and we are still editing.  Here are a few to enjoy for now.

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This is Natalie in her Junior Prom dress.  It was my sister’s (her mother’s) Senior Prom dress but has been reinvented.  Talk about vintage!  We also took some photos of her in her Senior Prom dress but you’ll have to ask her for those.  Wouldn’t want to give too much away before the big event!

Yes, that is a real train.  It was FLYING by.  I’ll spare you the photo with the look on her face that says “You want me to do what!?”.  We have so many beautiful ones to choose from, this is hard!

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This isn’t even a sampling of all the shoots.  Like I said, we’ve been busy!

And in the spirit of photos we have (finally) started to embrace our love for the craft and share it with others.  We used to do photoshoots back when film was in and we were still a little (ok, a lot) unsure about the whole portrait thing.  Then it was only for us, then we included friends and family since we’ve learned not everyone can take a photo without chopping heads off.  Fast forward 10 years and hundreds of practice shoots later and we find ourselves getting inquiries left and right.  Family and friends always pushed us to do this and we have seen the light.  To mainstream things a bit and have one central location for our favorite photos we’ve created Yap Originals (www.yaporiginals.com).  Our friend Lauren actually branded us and always bragged about how many “Yap Originals” she had hanging in her home.  Thanks Lauren!

Here are some photos from our most recent newborn shot.  Isabelle is a doll and she has an amazing family.  What a love!  We have so many other recent shoots that I wish we could share.  Oh, what I could do with free time!

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Isabelle’s dad is a firefighter… and she has her own boots!

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We were also MIA because we were off getting older.  Walter and I (who are 2 days apart) took the kids to Disney for our birthdays.  It was soooooo hot but also a lot of fun.  We have a million photos to share and will, soon.

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The one thing keeping us sane and us as with it as we are (which isn’t very “with” as it turns out) is Kate’s new BFF, Falan.  Falan is the newest addition to the scenery around here.  I hate to call her a nanny, because that sounds so snobby, but she’s so much more than a babysitter.  I don’t know what we’d do without her.  We originally hired her to help until I got Oh My Bride off and running but I’m not sure how we could ever part with her.  Hopefully things start running smoothly and prosperity finds its way to our door so we won’t have to worry about that.  In addition to being amazing with the kids she is ridiculously beautiful.  How lucky was I to talk her into modeling a few hair accessories for Oh My Bride?

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So we’re here.  I appreciate all of you who have reached out to us.  We are grateful for your love and friendship.  Hopefully things will slow down here just a bit so we may have the opportunity to get back into the social scene.

Love you all!

My amazing family…

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

I love my family.  I love how crazy and quirky they are.  I love how different we are.  I love how we stick together through tough times and sticky situations.  I love that they would do absolutely anything for me.  I love that when my cell phone rings at 8am and 5pm every day I know exactly who it is (it’s always Lindy).  I love that my sister spent way too much money to chat with me during her trip to Japan.  I love how much they all love my kids.  I love how they love to remind me of every embarrassing thing I ever did in public. 

My mom recently had surgery (nothing serious, nothing related to her long gone breast cancer) and strangely it’s been very uniting.  I laid in bed with her, Kate, and my niece Julia today and we all chatted, laughed, and entertained Kate.  It’s one of those moments that just sticks to your memory.  Thursday my sister, Nikki, and I plan to invade her bed for some quality time and I’m sure that will be just as fun.  I hold those moments close like the times when my mom stayed with us after having Kate.  They are just so awesome!

So along the lines of them doing anything for me I suckered Nikki and Julia into a photo shoot.  My new online site (details soon) offers hair accessories but I didn’t have any good photos of the products.  They loaded up all their pretty dresses and dragged over for a shoot during the horrible rain storms and a surprise ant problem.  They were such troopers!  They even stayed afterwards to babysit so Walter and I could go out!  Anyway, I got some photos for my site but I got two others that I am in love with.  Two that I want to hang up all over my house.  The last time Nikki and Julia took photos together Julia was tiny.  Like preschool tiny.  I love having an updated photo but why, oh why, does she have to look more like Nikki’s sister than her daughter?!?  12 going on 25!  What’s with these kids growing up so fast!?  I’ve had the first photo hanging in my house since the day I took it.  I’m not sure I can take it down, maybe I just need a bigger frame.

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And here’s one of Julia that I love (that’s one of the hair accessories by the way).  She says she looks “fat” and “ugly” in this picture.  Mark my words young lady, you’re going to wish you were this “fat” and “ugly” in 25 years.  What I wouldn’t give…

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*And it did occur to me that when I said “my family” you may have been expecting a story about Walter, Noah, and Kate.  They’re pretty amazing too!

Last But Not Least…

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

And here’s the third attempt at Kate’s 6 month photos -

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Can you say heiney?

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I love her back wrinkles!

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Porcelain doll anyone?  The hair accessories are again courtesy of Dainty Diva Designs.  These photos are for their portfolio as well as our blog.

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 Looking over the hundreds of photos again makes me realize that we got more good ones than I realized which means there was some unnecessary torture.  Oh well, I’m certain it won’t be the last time we overdo it with the pictures!

And because we always try to sneak in a photo or two of Noah, here’s what we bribed him into -

First, his beloved monkey had to have a photo shoot.  We’re seriously considering framing this and putting it in his room.  Poor monkey is looking ROUGH but is no less loved.

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Here’s Noah in need of a haircut…

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I would love to tell you that this next photo was completely unstaged, unbribed… but I know you’re smarter than that.

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Take Two!

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Feeling like we didn’t get enough photos of Kate looking like her usual, happy self I took her outside one morning to torture her some more.  These were slightly more successful but doing the photos at feeding time was risky.  Doing them after would have shown you more than you wanted to see of what was in her bottle so it’s a double edged sword.  Any way, here’s Kate in the backyard striking a pose -

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Kate can flip from her back to her belly so fast that it was hard to keep her still.  She’s still perfecting her sitting technique though but she’s getting good!

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Kate was so interested in the grass.  She tried so hard to scoot over to it but eventually decided it would be easier just to pull the blanket toward her.  Once she finally got hold of it she totally freaked out.  I guess it’s not the texture she was expecting.

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This is one of my favorites!

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This is how Kate looks 99% of the time.  She is the happiest baby I know!

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And in case you’re wondering why I shot her on a drab gray blanket it is for comparison.  Here is Noah at his six month shot.  What do you think?  I get so many different opinions about how much or little they look like each other.

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That was so much fun, I can’t help myself… here are a few more.  They grow up so fast!

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And no, it doesn’t matter how much they resemble each other or how quickly they hit their milestones in comparison to each other.  It’s just fun watching them both grow and seeing them become little people.  They are so different from each other and so perfect.

Kate at 6 Months – Take One!

Monday, April 20th, 2009

When Noah was young we had his milestones chronicled and closely followed by our friend and amazing photographer, Amy Hill.  Times are a little tougher though and we’re pretty handy with the camera so we planned on trying to do Kate’s ourselves.  After all, we take photos of other people’s children and families, we do maternity and newborn shoots, and we get paid for them.  Well, it appears that we can photograph any child but our own.  For some reason it was so difficult trying to do Kate’s six month shots.  We have attempted them THREE times so we have a few great ones with very different feels and backgrounds but nothing consistent.  Here was our first go….

One of my favorite trees is the Japanese Rain Tree because when it blooms it’s magnificent.  It’s the closest thing we have to a cherry blossom in South Florida.  We took the kids to one in the neighborhood but they weren’t very excited about the process.  This was what most of the photos looked like -

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But we did manage to get a few keepers -

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Kate has recently found her feet and she even sucks on her toes (ewww!).  Apparently she doesn’t “perform” though because we can never get her to do it when the camera is out.  This is as good as gets!

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Our dear friend Rachel has recently started creating and selling a line of children’s hair accessories called Dainty Diva Designs.  It’s hard work but someone has to model them…

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Poor Noah even got sucked into the shoot.  As always, lollipops were harmed in the making of his photos!

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And for those keeping track, Kate is continuing to thrive!  At her six month visit she weighed in at 17.12 pounds (which is the 75th percentile among her peers), and measured 27.5 inches (the 95th percentile).  Her head circumference was in the 90th percentile so we’re hoping Kate will be tall and brilliant!

Pretty as a picture!

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

I have several saved drafts and things on my mind to share with you but something incredible happened today and I cannot help but let it skip to the front of the line.  Our dear friend and professional photographer, Amy Hill, came over to spend some time with Kate and I.  She hasn’t seen Kate since she was 8 days old so of course she’s changed quite a bit.  Lucky for us Amy brought her camera and she captured some of the most gorgeous images of Kate.  Here are just a few of my 85 favorites!  Thank you so much Amy!

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One other big event happened today – Kate laughed for the first time!  It was so precious.  I forgot how beautiful a baby’s laugh is and I can’t wait to hear it again and again!

Happy 3rd Month, Kate

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Kate turned 3 months old on the 22nd and we celebrate the occasion (naturally) with a photo shoot.  She’s a big girl, tipping the scales at 15 pounds, but a very happy baby.  She’s gotten really good at controlling her head and she pulled up completely on her belly for the first time the other night.  She’s a little lazy when it comes to physical activity but I would be too if my thighs looked like hers, oh wait they do – and I am!

Here are some photos from the shoot -

  

So happy!  The second photo should have the caption – “Call me!”

  

And for a kid who hates having his photo taken he sure is around anytime is sister is having hers done!

Unfortunately for Kate she inherited my horrible feet and toes -

I love this picture because it reminds me of some of my favorites of Noah (he was 4 months) -

Still think they look alike?

This is her “talking”, she’s very vocal and social lately -

And this is my favorite photo from the day.  She’s so beautiful (a touch biased, maybe)!

Unfortunately she’s starting to lose some hair so the bow may need a break but I found a cute headband (not garter belt, don’t worry) to ward off all the boy comments.

We also went to the Delray Christmas Parade (as we do EVERY year) around this time but don’t have enough photos to give them their own post, sorry for the blog sandwich -

Here’s the reason I even brought up the parade, believe it or not there are a few things that go on in our lives I don’t post about.  Noah was so excited this year for the parade and I love that I caught it in this photo -

He loved the lights, the bands, the dancers, the floats, and as usual – hated that I brought the camera.

Kate slept through 99% of the parade.  When she woke up she wanted to eat.  I can’t believe fire trucks and marching bands don’t phase her.  I guess all the practice of sleeping through her brother does the trick.

 

Noah has a flashing red nose too but my camera battery died before I could get a photo with both.  Since we’re being nostalgic I’ll also show the last time he wore antlers -

  

why…..?!?

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Whoever taught my son the concept of “why?” needs to be stoned!  My God, EVERYTHING is “why?…but why?…” and after awhile the answer is “BECAUSE I SAID SO!”.  For the most part we try to answer all of his questions, which we require to be actual questions, hoping he’ll retain a little bit of the information but after awhile you just want to hit your ahead against the wall.  He is just too curious – or nosey!

“Why are these lights on?”
“Why are these lights off?”
“Where is our house?”
“Why do we live there?”
“What’s that (total stranger) man’s name?” (that we’re standing within earshot of)
“Why are we going?”
“Why are we stopping?”
“What are you thinking?”
I am not exaggerating even a little and the questions don’t ever stop, not even for him to breathe!  Any idea when it stops?  Is it to late to ask Santa for a mute button for him?

Kate is doing well.  She just yells at us so far but luckily her needs are still simple.  She loves to smile and flirt now and it’s so much fun getting her to grin.  She has found her hands and thinks they are the coolest thing ever.  We often find her liking her fist or doing tai chi when no one is looking.  We’ve also discovered that she has a dimple!  The ying to Noah’s yang.  Each of them have just one, on opposite cheeks, like they share a pair.  Today is her 3 month birthday!

Walter and I are very well also.  He’s off until the end of the year – which I love!  We are trying to do fun things, catch up with friends, take trips to attractions we don’t get to often, and generally just spend time together.  We’ve been doing quite a few photoshoots for friends, family and clients.  It’s been a long time since this was something we did so often and to be honest we didn’t think it was something we would every do with regularity again but we enjoy it so much that we’re making it work.  We charge just enough to cover the babysitter and our time to do the shooting, editing, and airbrushing and we’ve really been having fun.  Maybe when the kids are older we’ll set the studio stuff back up and play with that again.  For now only our kids get studio shots.

We hope you all are well and are enjoying the holiday season.  I will try to blog about our adventures since Walter’s been off, we have been diligent about taking photos!

Here is part two of decorating the house for Christmas -

I told Noah he had to wear his Santa hat if he was going to help decorate the tree.  It was the rule.  He was thrilled.

He loved hanging ornaments though.  This year we invested in an entire collection of shatterproof ornaments.  It’s a good thing too, Noah has tried to spin the tree a few times.  Lovely.  He couldn’t stay focused on which set we were hanging at the time and went back and forth between all the choices.  He loved putting the hook on himself and hanging them.  I couldn’t help myself, after he went to bed I rearranged some of the ornaments.  Who needs six hanging off the same branch?!

  

The next evening the kids and I were going to hang lights outside in the bushes.  What a disaster.  I think they were both crying before the second strand was up.  I did them another time, by myself, and they look fabulous!  Of course Noah likes everyone else’s lights better but at least we have them up this year.

This was before we started hanging them.

And when I realized my car was in all of the photos I dragged them to the front door.

I just realized I don’t have any photos of the final products.  I’ll work on that, and my Christmas shopping!

Hot Mama!

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

My girlfriend Lauren is about to have a baby!  She’s expecting her second son, to be named Maxim (“Max”), most any day and is anxiously awaiting his arrival.  She happens to be one of the most beautiful women I know and Walter and I were lucky enough to do her maternity photos today.  Here are a few shots from the day, all published with her permission.

Alex wasn’t really sure he wanted his picture taken.  He warmed up fast though and pretty soon we were coaxing him out of photos!

Is he not the cutest kid ever?  Noah and Alex are about 6 months apart and they are both all boy.  When we get together, especially at the waterparks, it’s double trouble!

We “borrowed” the ultrasound idea from a friend and fellower photographer.  Thanks Virginia!

  

Lauren is gorgeous and has the most perfect baby bump!  I know how awkward and uncomfortable it is to be nine months pregnant but I think if my pregnant body looked anything like hers I would have complained a lot less! 

Lauren’s husband, Rob, put up with a lot today!  He was such a trooper and didn’t complain once!

  

Mazel Tov!

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Wednesday night I attended my first bris!  I know everyone thinks I’m crazy for being so excited about it but I had never been to one and it was amazing!  My friends, Gena and Josh, had their son Spencer on the 19th and Jewish tradition is that boys are circumcised on their 8th day of life.  Let me just tell you that he is the sweetest, most perfect little boy.  He’s a little guy, born just under 7 pounds, and he’s so beautiful you can’t help but melt every time you see him.  He’s also the first baby I’ve ever seen with platinum blonde hair! 

The bris ceremony was beautiful!  Not the actual procedure, but the prayers, songs, tradition, and heartfelt dedications – like nothing I’ve ever seen.  It was also my first time meeting a lot of Gena and Josh’s family and friends, who were all very lovely and welcoming, and I was touched by how open and friendly they all were.  You never would have known I was a total stranger until that night, I really felt like a part of the festivities and their circle of loved ones.  It was a great night and other than a few whimpers Spencer did very well.  A few drops of the Manischewitz made sure he was very comfortable and once everything was over he slept like a perfect angel.  He was a gracious host, letting everyone hold and snuggle him.  Hopefully he wasn’t too well rested for the night ahead because I’m sure mom and dad were looking forward to a good night’s sleep!

Here are a few photos from the ceremony -

  

I have a thing for babies in yarmulkes!

Spencer was named for his grandfather who had a thing for M&M’s

This is all homemade and all amazing!  Aunt Marcia taught me how to properly say rugalach.  I wasn’t able to hide my schikza ways from her!

Mom, Dad, Spencer and the Mohel, who they call Seif the Knife – yes, really.